Joe Ajaero, one of the contenders for the presidency of the Nigeria Labour Congress, on Thursday called for the intervention of labour veterans to resolve issues that led to the disruption of the election of new national leaders of the congress.
Ajaero of the Nigeria Union of Electricity Employees, while briefing newsmen in Abuja, said the election was botched due to some irregularities discovered on the ballot papers.
He appealed to the labour veterans to ensure that no vacuum was left due to the inconclusive election.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that a new NLC president would have been sworn in on Thursday as the tenure of the outgoing President, Abdulwaheed Omar, who served two four-year tenures, ended on February 6.
The 11th NLC National Delegates’ Conference ended abruptly as some aggrieved members snatched the ballot boxes and smashed them as voting was still ongoing.
Ajaero said: “We wish to appeal to the elders of the movement to do the needful, to make sure that there is no vacuum in the NLC.
“This is our call and message and we apologise to Nigerians who may feel insulted by this show of shame to show understanding until the exercise is concluded.”
Ajaero explained that the crisis was triggered by the evidence that a candidate’s name was duplicated on the ballot papers.
He further said some ballot papers did not have his name and that the one that had his name did not have a serial number, describing the situation as a trap to nullify his votes.
According to him, the act of manipulation led to the disruption of the exercise, the first of its kind.
Ajaero said: “As you are all aware, the 11th National Delegates’ Conference of the labour congress commenced and unlike previous conferences, they were indications that this conference might have a setback.
“The conference, which seemed to have adopted new manipulating skills of malpractice, decided to abandon some of the contents of the constitution, which led to one of the candidate’s pulling out of the exercise.
“We discovered that a candidate in this election, who belongs to a particular caucus, printed ballot papers, duplicating his name in the ballot papers, with various serial numbers.
“And in the process, members of their own unions were busy voting for one person more than two or three times.
“The other unions’ reaction led to the discontinuation of the exercise.”
While not accusing the Electoral Committee of bias, Ajaero said only the committee could explain what went wrong.
He, however, urged Nigerian workers to remain calm and not succumb to provocation.
Also speaking, Mansur Musa, a member of the NLC Electoral Committee, said the committee did its job accordingly.
Musa said the candidates were properly screened, adding that candidates who were not cleared by the committee were screened at the conference, while one presidential aspirant stepped down at the last minute.
Musa admitted that some irregularities were discovered on the ballot papers.
He, however, absolved the committee of blame, saying that the mandate to print ballot was that of the secretariat.
NAN.